Methods of making sure whether a device is set up properly are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Published Patent Application No. 2007-151383 (corresponding to US2007/0102505 A1), and Japanese Published Patent Application No. 2006-268079.
In a medical sector, conventionally, actions taken by medical staff have been made sure visually, which was insufficient to prevent medical malpractice such as use of an incorrect medical device and misidentification of patients. Recently, there is a major trend to prevent medical malpractice by introduction of IT (Information Technology) in clinical practice, making use of bar codes and IC tags. Methods of making sure whether the combination of a medical device, a drug, and a patient is correct are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Published Patent Application No. 2004-287616 (corresponding to US2004/0102505 A1), and Japanese Published Patent Application No. 2005-157936.
A collision avoidance method that is used in reading plural IC tags is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent No. 3565217 (corresponding to US2004/0085208 A1).